Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 2728 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Graham Simpson
That would be yet another committee.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Graham Simpson
You said that the people on the future industry board are the same people who are on the growth deal board. Do we need a future industry board?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Graham Simpson
You will be pleased to know that there will be another report and another consultation—the Government’s just transition plan, which has been mentioned. Is there a point to having a just transition plan? I address that question to Malcolm Bennie, because Diarmaid Lawlor has had a good run. What should be in such a plan? As Adam Gillies has said, it should not be just words. It will need to set out actions, projects and timescales. You have already mentioned that there are lots of ideas out there. However, for me, that plan should be about what we need, how much it will cost and how we get there. Is that how you see it?
10:30Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Graham Simpson
I guess that we are right at the start of that journey. Are we?
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
I am not here to defend the minister, but it is clear from the report that staff were spoken to. That perhaps addresses Katy Clark’s point about unions.
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
I will just finish my point first.
Drunken behaviour is, of course, something that people must deal with on buses and trains. I am not out late too often, but I would try to avoid the last train home, especially if I am out with my wife.
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
Member after member has raised the issue of a lack of data. We should not just be getting data from the police; we should be getting it from railway staff, too. What the minister has just said will be extremely useful if we are going to have an on-going campaign, because an on-going campaign is what we need. A debate such as this is fine, but it will probably get very little attention. We just need to keep it going to raise awareness.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
Ferguson Marine faced being struck off because it had not filed its accounts on time. Is there, as has been reported, an £11 million shortfall between what the firm has been asking for and what the Government has agreed to give it? Will that impact on the building of ferries?
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
I had hoped that this would be a consensual debate. I completely reject that, because I fully accept that women face particular issues on public transport. Everyone faces issues, but that applies to women in particular.
The coping strategy that I have just described is something that women must always think of. For them, drunken and boorish behaviour can be especially stressful. I note the report’s recommendation on that, but it is a tricky issue and I do not think that we can have a one-size-fits-all approach.
Work that was carried out before the pandemic showed that more than half of women in London had been victims of unwanted sexual behaviour while travelling on public transport. The most common type of incident, which was experienced by more than a third of women and 12 per cent of men, was a stranger deliberately pressing themselves up against a person. I noted in the minister’s report a section on invasion of space and a description of men sitting next to women when other seats were available. I am not sure that any of us likes that, but that would be particularly uncomfortable for a woman.
Transport Focus published its “Experiences of women and girls on transport” report in March 2022. It collected the views of 1,200 females across Great Britain. Most said that they felt “very safe” or “reasonably safe” across different modes of transport. The number of respondents who felt “very safe” ranged from 15 to 30 per cent. That is in comparison with the 59 per cent of respondents who said that they felt “very safe” using a car.
When planning or making a journey, 85 per cent of respondents thought about their safety. The types of mitigations that were taken included travelling at particular times of day, using specific routes, avoiding certain types of transport and travelling with others. I suspect that we will hear that throughout the debate.
The incidents that were described by respondents included sexual assaults, intimidating or predatory encounters, being physically assaulted or threatened and feeling unsafe due to antisocial behaviour. Around half the respondents said that they had felt threatened when making a journey on public transport. More than two in five had been subjected to verbal aggression and 14 per cent said that they had been physically threatened or assaulted when making a journey on public transport.
Transport Scotland produced a very useful report in June last year. The section on personal safety issues said that data from the Scottish household survey shows that twice as many women as men disagree that they feel safe and secure on the bus and train in the evening. In addition, twice as many women as men cite concerns for personal safety on dark or lonely roads as a barrier to cycling to work. We have not mentioned cycling yet.
United Kingdom data from the UK Government Equalities Office shows that, in 2020, of those who had experienced sexual harassment in the previous 12 months, 28 per cent had experienced it on public transport.
There are similar issues in relation to rail travel. Statistics from the British Transport Police show that there were 63 reports of sexual assault on ScotRail trains between 2017 and 2021.
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
Yes, I would. That issue is mentioned in the report that the minister commissioned. Greater staff and police presence would be a great help.
Women-only train carriages have been suggested as a possible solution to safety concerns, but I agree with my good friend Mick Hogg, from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, that that would be a logistical nightmare. I hope that he is watching.
The minister has told of her own experiences, and I think that she was quite right to commission the research that she did. The report is very fair and shows that there are no easy answers. It also shows that women’s experiences differ, not just from those of men but from those of other women. Some of the strategies that are used in order to keep safe are also used by men.
